Well behaved monkeys rarely make history » Music

Spare some change?

Chipmonkey — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:13:42 +0000

Radiohead has managed to sneak in an album release on October 10th. It has been some 4 years since their last release with former record label EMI. What makes this release special is that they are offering the album as a digital download and they are letting their fans decide how much they want to pay for it. That’s right, you feel like paying a buck? You get the album. You feel like paying twenty bucks? You get the album.

Way to rage against the corporate record label machine!

Xanadu Dreams

Chipmonkey — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:33:01 +0000

Last year I was thrilled to find the Castro Theatre playing my favorite childhood movie, Xanadu. I relayed this information to MD with great enthusiasm of which he could not relate. Upon googling the movie, we discovered it had been bestowed a couple of awards — from the Razzies. We arrived to find people in their roller skating garb and full of Xanadu energy. When the movie started I, along with the rest of the crowd, sang along at full volume with each song. Everyone reacted out loud to each delightfully kitsch scene. I turned briefly from the screen to find MD asleep. This is a man who has never in all the years I have known him fallen asleep while watching a movie. No matter if it is the most boring film ever and we are snuggled comfortably on the couch, you will not even find his lids getting heavy. But there we were surrounded by a crowd of singing, dancing, hooting and hollering Xanadu fans and he was out like a light. He concluded it was “self preservation” and he may have been right.

Anyway, the point is that Xanadu has arrived on broadway! James Wolcott attended a preview performance and you can find his review here. I am so on my way to NYC.

Mos’ definitely

Chipmonkey — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:39:49 +0000

The other night I stopped by the coffee shop before I went to class. The 2 girls behind the counter were chatting and one said she was going to see Mos Def. The second girl inquired further because she did not know of Mos Def and the first girl replied “Oh its punk rock.” I thought to myself that I must have misunderstood who she was talking about because 1. I had not heard that Mos Def was touring and 2. Even if you take into consideration Mos Def’s “The New Danger” album (snubbed by many Mos fans, not including myself) or his band Black Jack Johnson you still could never categorize one of hip hop’s best MCs as punk rock.

Much to my dismay the coffee girl, althought wrong about his genre, was right that Mos Def was playing here. The show was announced the same day it was performed and still sold out. What a heartbreaker.

Coincidentally, I have “Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme” sitting at the house waiting to be watched which features Mos Def among many other amazing hip hop artists. While it will not replace the show I missed, it might help ease the disappointment.

Nerdcore

Chipmonkey — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 03:40:18 +0000

It looks like my outter nerd and my inner hip hopper found something they could both love equally, meet MC Frontalot and the Nerdcore movement.

Here is a little glimpse at the upcoming documentary…

Sov ‘n Slow

Chipmonkey — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 14:29:13 +0000

Look who was on the front page of Yahoo this morning…

As you may know already, Zach Slow raised his $10,000 and got the girl, as they say. You can find a recap of the night (with pics!) here.

And here are a couple pictures from the show that I took…

Green and blue and music and art… lovely

Chipmonkey — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 17:09:39 +0000

I am off to Coachella this weekend… should be a good time. Kanye West mysteriously showed up on the schedule although he isn’t listed on the fliers or in the lineup – a pleasant surprise I guess. I will send pics from the phone to the flick account as the weekend progresses. And then I will post better pictures from the real camera when I get home.

Tell me why?

Chipmonkey — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 14:11:58 +0000

Argh… Lollapalooza has released the schedule/lineup for next weekend. I am a little bit annoyed because they have bands starting and ending at the same time on different stages. I don’t understand why they aren’t staggering start times. I am disappointed that I am going to have to choose to either miss a show or watch half of one and half of another. There just really is no reason for them to NOT stagger start times. Damn it!

Chris & Heather’s Record Round-Up Music Jamboree

Chipmonkey — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 16:15:34 +0000

Friday night I ended up at Hideout for what turned out to be one of the funnest shows I have ever gone to. It was a mulit-media celebration of Scott Ligon’s 35th birthday. Who is Scott Ligon you might ask? I had no idea! But after Friday night I do know that he is an extremely talented “singer song-writer” and that he plays in a band called Western Elstons and that he has a really great group of friends and family. It was as though I had crashed a family party in their grandpa’s basement and at once felt like an undercover agent and a member of the family. The Christmas lights, wood paneling and oversized stuffed fish on the wall really helped add to that atmosphere. The night started off with Scott’s brother, Chris playing piano and singing songs he wrote. There was even a skit where one of the gals in the group depicted a “knocked up french girl”. They moved through a number of songs (including such family hits as “Poop Ghost”) and various members of the party got up and played an assortment of instruments, all showcasing their wide range of talent. During some of the songs, they played a slide show of what I imagine were all familiar images from Scott’s life. Parts of the evening were also filled up with film clips from the 60’s and 70’s (and maybe earlier?). There were a lot of old country western stars singing and playing guitar, most (but not all!) of which I could not readily identify. They also threw in some great old commercials as well as movie previews that were all priceless. We then cut to the Beatles first performance on the Ed Sullivan show. It was 25 minutes of girls screaming and guys coming out and turning Ringo’s drum set around – The Ringo Rotisserie! This part of the night reminded me of a great episode of This American Life about blowing your big break. A couple got booked to do their comedy act on this exact Ed Sullivan show. At the time they (nor anyone else) hadn’t any idea the magnitude of the event they were witnessing, which made it that much worse that they totally blew it! After the Beatles film, Kelly Hogan sang a few with Scott (and various members from the group playing this instrument or that). This girl can sing like nobody’s business. She and Scott did a lot of great old country western tunes, most (but not all!) of which I could not readily identify. There were also a couple jazz numbers thrown in there for good measure. After some more musical numbers and some more film clips, the night ended with Scott’s band Western Elstons (a nice play on Chicago street names I might add) jamming their hearts out. I was grinning ear-to-ear the entire night. I had to get up early to work, but just could not bring myself to leave this jamboree. I felt a little sad when it ended knowing that I could not call any of these people up tomorrow and hang out with them again.

Photographic evidence can be found here…

American idiot

Chipmonkey — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 17:21:40 +0000

I watched the president’s speech last night and I would give you a summary of what he said, but unfortunately he did not say a damn thing. Honestly with all his rambling he may as well have stood up there in silence, it would have been equally as productive. He was asked to give the people some insight into his strategy to get out of Iraq, but he just mentioned 9/11 instead. Just a reminder, in case

you have forgotten Mr. President, what happened to our friends in New York has no direct connection to your little war. It infuriates me that this monkey continues to waste our time and money and does not feel that he needs to be held accountable for any of it. Furthermore, it is insulting that he has such little regard for the intelligence of the American people that he believes he can continue to make us happy by feeding us crap with a side of not-so-innocent smiles and smirks. I saw a t-shirt this weekend that I feel we should all take to heart, it said “Stop bitching start a revolution”. Yes, let’s.

Here is a great number by Utah Philips (mp3). I think he sums things up pretty nicely.

Back again

Chipmonkey — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 17:57:35 +0000

I saw that Primus was added to the Lollapalooza lineup. The only other Lollapalooza show I went to was in 1993 and both Primus and Dinosaur Jr were also on that bill. Now if they could only get Tool to come back again, that would be perfect. Although I am sure that a side stage would never be able to accommodate them now.

Answers.com has some interesting histroy on Lollapalooza as well as all the lineups from festivals past.